Monday 8 October 2012

Enda’s Michelin star is a great Galway stew!

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All power to
Aniar restaurant proprietors Drigín Gaffey, Jp McMahon and head chef, Enda McEvoy. Being
awarded Galway's first Michelin star is a massive achievement. While they
deserve no end of credit, this success is the result of a wonderful Galway
stew, with contributions from patrons, entrepreneurs and talented people from
several continents.

Apologies if I forget one
or two of the stew’s ingredients. This is more an anecdotal memoir than a
fact-perfect account.

I’ve always
got on well with chefs. Passionate, vibrant and all just slightly crazy, they
speak my language.

Long-serving
colyoomistas will remember my very excellent friend Grumpy Chef, who is now
neither grumpy nor a chef (if one can ever truly un-chef oneself!) but happy
and a father with a family in Hobart, Tasmania.

But one night
back in 2000, whilst drinking in the back of the sadly-still-missed Taylor’s
bar, he met another young chef called Enda McEvoy. They did what chefs do -
they drank and talked about food and drank some more, so when Grumpy was
heading off to India, he suggested that Enda fill in for him as downstairs chef
at Harriet Leander’s Nimmos, which with her approval he did.

As my friend explained to
me:

“Over the next few years
we worked together at Nimmos and became firm friends with plenty of banter and
piss taking of each other. Since my departure to Australia I have worked with
him every time I’ve been back, on weddings, game dinners and other functions.
I’m also very blessed to be Godfather to his lovely boy Fin.”

Nimmos was a fantastic
place back in those days. The tiny downstairs kitchen turned out great bistro
food, while upstairs, chef Jacky Lelievre pretty much singlehandedly introduced
fine dining to Galway City. Jacky had already worked in several
Michelin-starred restaurants in France, so it must have been great for Enda to
encounter such a combination of flair, experience, passion and charm as offered
by Harriet’s unique influence and Jacky’s imagination and shining
professionalism.

After Harriet sold Nimmos,
Enda went to work for her friend and erstwhile colleague, Seamus Sheridan, at
the restaurant above his eponymous pub on the docks. Seamus could see Enda’s
potential and gave him all the staff, time and financial support he could to bring
out the young chef’s talent.

By now Enda was passionate
about foraging, and would be out each morning at dawn, prowling woodlands and
beaches, collecting local wild produce for Sheridan’s kitchen.

There
he worked alongside a talented team including John McInnes, Jeremy Hunt and
Pawel Karnafel, some of whom would later move with him to Aniar, when
Sheridan's was sadly forced to close.

We now take a
slight sideways step to recognise the work of another young chef, Alan
Williams, who years before had taken the bold step of opening his own
restaurant, Abalone, in what was then the culinary desert of Dominick Street.

Williams’
success attracted Jp McMahon to open the incredibly successful Spanish
restaurant Cava next door to Abalone, and subsequently the street, and indeed
the entire West End, has become a stroganoff of culinary delight, with Rouge,
Creole, La Fine Bouche and Jess Murphy’s award-winning Kai Cafe added to the
mix.

When Abalone
closed, Jp seized the opportunity to continue the work that Seamus Sheridan had
started. Aniar was born.

Inbetween
Sheridan’s and Aniar, Enda collaborated with John McInnes on the Cook Wild
Project, a pop-up restaurant offering degustation nights. When chef René
Redzepi then offered him the chance to work a stage
at what many consider to be the world’s finest restaurant, Noma, in Copenhagen,
Enda leaped at the opportunity to contribute to the natural home of foraging
cuisine.

Inspired by
his experience in Denmark and lucky once again to have a visionary patron
behind him, Enda and the Aniar team worked their socks off to create their own
terroir-based menu, inspired by the wild food of the West of Ireland. Enda’s
recognition comes well-deserved and timely.

Last month the
Snapper and I were lucky enough to be invited to Co. Offaly, to celebrate
Enda’s marriage to his better half, the mother of his children and frequent
foraging widow, the wonderful Sinead. It was a beautiful event, strange only
because we found ourselves at the bride’s family farm, far culturally and geographically
from Galway, yet surrounded by the entire restaurant workforce of the city.

Pity the poor
punters who tried to find good food and service in town that night!

As the
bonhomie and alcohol worked their magic, all the hard work the bride’s family
had done paid off. An atmosphere of a mini-festival started to imbue the
Midlands air.

The respect
that Enda has earned from those who influence our food in Galway was evident
everywhere. In the garden Jp McMahon was supervising the pulling of a huge pig
that had been roasting on a spit for several decades. Inside the marquee there
stood the most sublime and bizarre wedding cake I’ve ever seen - built entirely
of rings of Sheridan’s cheeses, it caught the eye and brought a smile to our
lips, more as an art installation than traditional sliceable.

Later in the
evening, as the music started to play, I sat at a table and watched Enda
dancing, eyes closed, his little boy clasped to his chest. Lost in an exhausted
joyous reverie, he’d just married his sweetheart, been nominated Food and
Wine's Best Chef in Connacht and been awarded 4.5 stars out of 5 in that day’s
Sunday Times review.

I sent him a
silent pulse of love, hoping that he appreciated how it felt to be at the top
of the tree.

But I was
wrong. The best was yet to come.

Thanks to the
talent, spirit, faith and hard work of all the ingredients in this massive
stew, Galway has a star. Michelins may
come and go. Hopefully Enda’s will only rise.